In the oral care industry, it is difficult to gather experimental data on the teeth of a living person due to the vast number of inherent differences from one person's teeth to another, and the lack of a constant attribute upon which to base the data. As such, experimental data is typically collected by subjecting sterilized enamel block substrates to a condition, such as sugar or coffee, and then applying an oral care material, such as a dentifrice or a tooth whitening solution, to the enamel block substrates to determine the efficiency of the oral care material. In many experimental situations, it is also important to subject the enamel block substrates to saliva in order to form a salivary pellicle on the enamel block substrates. This reproduces the environmental conditions that teeth are subjected to within the mouth of a living person. Therefore, it has been known to mount enamel blocks to acrylic palatal appliances, which can then be inserted into the mouth of a user and worn.
Specifically, an acrylic palatal appliance, such as a retainer, is created to fit on the palate of a particular user. A typical acrylic palatal appliance is formed to fit a particular user and to rest securely against the inner surfaces of the user's upper teeth and remain in place against the palate of that user. Recesses are formed into the acrylic palatal appliance in which the enamel block substrates are disposed. Once created, the acrylic palatal appliance having the enamel block substrates mounted thereon is inserted into and removed from a user's mouth repetitively. Specifically, the acrylic palatal appliance can be inserted into a user's mouth to achieve salivary pellicle formation, removed from the user's mouth to subject the enamel block substrates to a particular oral care material or other substance, and then reinserted into the user's mouth to gather data regarding the effectiveness of the oral care material on the teeth within the environment of a user's mouth.
One major problem with using existing acrylic palatal appliances for experimental purposes is that every person has a different shape to their mouth. This requires that an acrylic palatal appliance be created that is particularly designed to be worn by a single individual. To create an acrylic palatal appliance, a technician must make an alginate impression of a user's mouth by placing a tray containing a powder comprising alginate salt, calcium salt and trisodium phosphate into the user's mouth. The powder hardens into a rubbery, gel-like substance upon mixing with the user's saliva and creates an impression of the user's mouth. A hard plaster is then poured into the gel-like impression, which makes a duplicate of the user's mouth and teeth. The hard plaster model must then be trimmed to get rid of extra plaster. After many intervening cleaning and preparing steps, acrylic can be poured into the hard plaster model in order to create the acrylic palatal appliance that is designed to fit the unique mouth of a single individual.
Thus, creating an acrylic palatal appliance is extremely time consuming and tedious. Moreover, requiring each person participating in an experimental study to have their own personal acrylic palatal appliance slows down the experimental process. Furthermore, an acrylic palatal appliance containing enamel block substrates for testing purposes cannot be reused by a second test participant even after sterilization because it will not fit that user's mouth. Additionally, many potential test participants are unwilling to wear an acrylic palatal appliance or have one made. This can make it difficult for an organization attempting to conduct an experimental study to obtain a sufficient number of willing participants in order to gather adequate data.
These problems require a better way to conduct oral care experiments on enamel block substrates both in-vivo and ex-vivo.